Pregnancy-Associated Mortality in New York City by Demographics and Cause

Pregnancy-associated deaths of New York state residents occurring in New York City are tracked annually. Data originates from death certificates, vital records linkage, and expert review by the NYC Department of Health's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee. Information covers years up to the latest update in October 2025.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in maternal mortality by aggregating Deaths by Year and Underlying_cause.
• Investigate racial disparities by comparing Deaths across different Race/ethnicity categories for pregnancy-related mortality.
• Assess geographic distribution of pregnancy-associated deaths across NYC using the Borough column.
• Classify deaths by their relation to pregnancy using the Related column (e.g., pregnancy-related, pregnancy-associated but not related).

Strengths

• Data is produced via a multi-source methodology including death certificates and expert review by a 40-member committee.
• Provides separate breakdowns for key demographic variables like Race/ethnicity and Borough.

Limitations

• Data are not cross-classified on all variables; for example, cause of death cannot be analyzed simultaneously by race and borough.
• Sample size (number of rows/deaths per year) is unknown, which may limit statistical power for rare events.

Provenance

Source

NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) via data.cityofnewyork.us.

Collection Method

Identified from death certificates, vital records linkage, medical examiner records, and hospital discharge data, followed by expert committee (M3RC) review.

Time Range

Annual data, specific year range unknown.

Freshness

Last updated October 2025.

Geography

New York City, for deaths of New York state residents.